David Maugham retained the East Midlands Championship title

[<<] [>>] by Ian Vincent, Manager at Nottingham
26-28 Jun 2009 (AC - Championships)

Despite the usual clash with Glastonbury, Nottingham avoided the rain, though conditions were hot and humid. The lawns were drying out, though somewhat unevenly, with fast brown and slower green patches. At lunchtime on Sunday, lawn one averaged 11.5 Plummers, though with hoops set to 1/32" in fresh ground by the Ipswich Duo of Martin French and Phil Eardley, conditions proved to be more challenging than the speed would suggest.

Richard White reached the final of both the Draw and the Process and played David Maugham first. He was Riggalled by David when both backward balls were for Penultimate and a fascinating tactical battle followed. Richard, however, never hit in, despite a number of close shots. The last one was from Penultimate at balls wired behind Rover: he ran Rover cleanly to the South boundary, but just missed the balls. David ran Rover and pegged out to win +3 after some four hours.

Marcus Evans, who was due to contest the other final, preceded it with an unusual late brunch of 10 hard-boiled eggs. These had been cooked by Debbie Cornelius, after Pete Trimmer had offered odds of 2 to 1 against Marcus consuming 20 within an apparently generous time allowance of 2.5 hours. This had arisen after discussion on Friday as to whether the entire vegetarian provision could have been consumed. A search using a mobile internet connection revealed the web site of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which published a record of 65 in under 7 minutes! Marcus, however, wisely abandoned his attempt after eating only a further 3.5 eggs during the game, which he won +8.

With neither player wanting a late journey South, the play-off was confined to single game, which David Maugham won +25 to retain the Hopewell Cup. Lionel Tibble won the Flexible Swiss plate.